The Emperor's Daughter
by RaeDarcy
Summary: I can hardly believe I am writing an Expendables story, but what can I say. This irascible bunch just tickles my fancy. This is an Expendables 3 story specifically, and is likely going to be a fairly fluffy exercise in indulging my current obsession with Kellen Lutz...Consider that full disclosure peeps. That said, it will feature most other characters from the movie and an OFC.
1. Chapter 1

Bonaparte.

It's glib, it's flip, its' autocratic, academic, _ironic_.

It's perfect.

And it's been his impenetrable mask for more years than he's bothered to keep track of these days. When exposure comes, it's so sudden, so swift, and so goddam _unexpected_, it takes his breath away. He should have been watching, he tells himself. He's getting lazy, _getting old_, but the truth is, he's no less cock-sure than any other Expendable, maybe more so, as he's always fancied himself small fry. He'd convinced himself he was flying low, safe, under the radar. Who, after all, is looking at the paper-pusher that looks like a cheap tourist, with a penchant for loud shirts and cargo shorts? Who wants the ageing number's man with perpetual stubble going to grey on his jaw and a balding head he covers with stupid hats, when they can have the hero instead?

Or the anti-hero….or whatever. The guys who blow shit up.

Now's not the time to quibble over semantics, the man whose real name is Malachi Sweeney, reminds himself as, hand not-quite-shaking but wanting to, he reaches for the secure cell he keeps on his person at all times. As he counts the rings and waits to hear a voice on the other end of the line, his formidable intellect picks up its former wild whirl.

_One ring._

He thinks of himself as small fry.

It's a lie.

He thinks everyone _else,_ thinks of him as small fry. He likes it that way, wants it that way. Enjoys the irony of it. That's why it was so fucking perfect. His own private joke, Bonaparte.

An Emperor with an inferiority complex, how like a spy with superiority complex.

_Two rings_.

After all, he knows he's the one that keeps it all going. He's the foundation. He understands the teams, he finds the talent, and not just talent, but the right mix of skill and personality. Fuck, he doesn't just supply the teams, he fucking _builds_ them. THE Teams. The ones people don't admit exist but always call, on a secure, untraceable cellular phone like the one in his hand. The men, and the odd woman, who do the work others don't do, can't do, won't do. No red tape, no political dissembling, just fire and blood, mostly their own, and half the time little or no reward and only one guarantee. A bloody end. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday….and they, none of them, doubt it. And they go anyway.

Hell, maybe they're heroes after all…..nobody said heroes have to be smart.

_Three rings._

But it doesn't matter, none of it matters, because it looks someone has gotten wise, or so it would seem. If you'd asked Bonaparte the best way for the rich, and powerful, and conscienceless to get rid of the inconvenient heroes that Bonaparte supplied to men like Barney Ross, he tell you to stop trying to dam the river one drop of water at a time, and poison the well at its source.

Yeah, it looks like someone finally got wise.

_Four rings._

Probably because the man Bonaparte was currently waiting on, had reached a whole new level of pain-in-the-ass to the dark and destructive powers that be, after acquiring an infusion of young, new kick-ass, to go with his already formidable stable of old kick-ass.

_Five Rings_.

Bonaparte's rabbiting mind began to narrow its focus, spinning tighter and tighter circles around the problem he faced, the force of his intellect dragging together every pertinent scrap of information; observations, statistics, locations, and contacts, stored in his not-inconsequential brain.

He thought he had a lock on motive. Barney would say his perception of his own influence was arrogant enough to do justice to his megalomaniacal namesake, but his gut had clenched in that tell-tale way when his mind had first flirted with the idea. A hunch you could call it. Well some of his other hunches had names like Barney Ross and Lee Christmas. Another is the man known to most as Doctor Death, but that he knows was born Martin Clarke, formerly of Detroit. Thirty odd years ago, it was he who'd steered an angry young drug-dealer with a gift for violence, out of jail and towards an angry, middle-aged, ex-army ranger with a plan. That hunch had been called Gunner Jensen, and he freely admitted that particular one had landed a little left of centre. Still one of the best men around to have at your back when things went to hell though. The list went on, but basically, anyone who was anyone in the seething underworld of mercenaries and espionage, was on it. So yeah, Bonaparte trusted his gut.

_Six rings_.

With motive established, next, what's the first move? It's a chess game, the enemy has got to know that he's got Barney and the boys for Queen and court(a comparison the burley mercenary would hardly appreciate, but it brings a sharp smile to Bonaparte's face), but who's the King? Who's the week link they're going to play for?

Because everyone knows, when you crack a mask as well grounded and long-standing as Bonaparte's, you're playing to win.

But who does this chink in the armour leave vulnerable?

_Seven rings._

Family, obviously. That's why most of the boys in this game don't have them. Or lost them, if they did.

_An angry ex-wife and two kids I never talk too._

The words echo in his head as the phone goes to voice mail.

He leaves a terse message and wipes the sweat that has broken out on his upper-lip with one corner of his eye-smarting maroon and orange shirt, as he punches the next number.

She won't be happy. Fuck, she'll be furious. Wasn't it why she'd left him in the first place, and taken the kids too?

And he's kept the promise he'd made that bitter day, all those long years ago. To go and stay gone. That's why the voice on the other end of the line isn't hers. Best to come at her sideways.

"Hello?"

"Jake?"

"_Dad_?"

His son's voice is so incredulous, it would make him wince if he had emotion or thought to spare.

His son, his beautiful boy, is 29. He's an ex-navy SEAL, and works for Uncle Sam now, in a more official capacity than his Daddy. Not so official that he's doesn't get it though. All of it, in the few short sentences Bonaparte feeds him. It helps that since he's joined a team that's in-the-know, more-or-less, he's a bit more read-in than his mother or sister, about what exactly it is his father does. Bonaparte doubts his daughter would have even a cursory answer to that question were it put to her. Not an accurate one certainly. She probably wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up either.

He forced down another un-welcome pang. We all make our choices. He knew it, he lived with it. The problem was, they'd had to live with his choices too. His wife_, his ex-wife_, and his children. They're old regrets for another time, he tells himself, listening to Jake Jr. talk.

"I'll put Mom in lock-down ASAP." His voice is clipped, all business, Bonaparte can hear him moving around, throwing things, into a bag or a suitcase, he guesses.

"Meryl, your Mom, she's gonna be…..fuck, she's gonna be furious."

"She can be furious in witness protection."

He smiles again, that's his boy. He hesitates, but says what's on his mind.

"Pick the men yourself. Promise you'll stay with her."

"My word," says his son, and that's all there is to say except,

"Charlie-"

"Is in Budapest." Bonaparte finishes the sentence.

"I'm talking care of it."

Or he would be, if Barney would answer his damn phone.

Three hours later when the secure cell finally rings, Bonaparte has worn a rut in the carpet of his cheap motel room, booked and cancelled three flights to Europe, travelling is probably too risky now. Who knows if any of his other aliases are still secure? The feeling of helplessness puts the bottle of tequila in his hand, and he's drunk almost half of it. It's nearly enough to settle his nerves. Nearly.

He doesn't care what they do to him. If they've got the balls to be that direct, well, this old dog has got a few surprises left up his sleeve. He's not that old. He's already heard back from Jake. He and Meryl, who's alley-cat mad, he can hear her in the background cursing him when the boy calls to check in, are already deep under and are going radio silent 'til whatever storm is coming blows over. And the storm is coming, his gut can feel it gathering around him. He thanks God that his kid works fast, and hell yes, that is pride he's feeling over it. And guilt, and relief, and more regret as he listens to Meryl damn him. It's not the first time, it likely won't be the last, and it is sick that the sound of her bitching makes him smile and ache with a strange kind of nostalgia? He always loved her temper, the spit-and-fire of her. If he was honest with himself, he still did.

Old regrets.

Right now is the time to deal with new fear, and this mother hen has still got one chick unaccounted for. By now the vultures know she's the only easy prey left, and he and can see them circling in his mind's eye.

Barney sounds, as always, like a water-logged bulldozer, and the bad connection isn't helping, but it doesn't take long to get him up to speed.

"Budapest?" He asks.

"What the hell is your girl doin' there?"

"Research" Bonaparte answers.

"She's a historian."

"Gets her brains from you, huh?" says the other man. And then, what Bonaparte has been waiting to hear.

"Smilee's in Serbia, he can be by tomorrow." What he doesn't say is that if Smilee is in Serbia alone, he's probably under-cover. And since it's Serbia, it's probably deep cover. The kind that's hard to leave intact and pick back up at a later time. The kind that breaking unexpectedly can be deadly….

"Whatever he's working on…" Bonaparte begins, but Barney doesn't let him finished.

"He drops it as of now." _Family comes first._

What's left unsaid is more important than what Barney voices. As usual.

The relief is maybe worse than the fear. The tequila hits him like a sledgehammer when the adrenaline that's been keeping him going is released.

"I'll send a Lee and a few of the boys to collect them, once Smilee gets to her. You got an address?"

Stupid question. Bonaparte's got everyone's address. And their phone number, and their email, and their twitter handle, and whatever other shit they've got going on.

His daughter may not be able to pick him out of a line-up, she may not have seen him since she was seven, but Bonaparte knows every shade of her smile. There hasn't been more than a half an hour in her entire life that he hasn't known exactly where she was.

He promises himself he'll change that, he'll see her face to face, if only they get through this.

Holding firmly to that thought, he rattles off an address and a cell number and hangs up, around him the walls fade away as he passes out, the cell phone that's now his lifeline still in his hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Bonaparte.

What's in a name?

Everything.

Or it is for the man John Smilee had known as Bonaparte.

_I wonder if I'll have to learn to call him something else, now?_

_How hard will it be for him to start answering to a new name after all this time?_

There're good questions, relevant, given the circumstances and John's own experience.

It had been hard for him, when he first tried-on, John. Mind you, he'd never had to hear the foreign "John", from a familiar mouth. He'd left the sound of it, and the people who'd known it, with the name that had no longer fit him, in the past. The man he'd been had died along with the brothers he'd lost in a god-forsaken desert a thousand-thousand miles from the place he used to call home. He couldn't go back, so he'd started to go other places. Places where, eventually, he'd met the man called Bonaparte.

Or rather, the mercenary formerly known as Bonaparte.

_I crack myself up._

It was a dark kind of humour, but that suited his mood.

So did the shadows he was lurking in. Too bad that goddamned strobe light kept chasing them away.

The discothèque was a whirl of neon lights, thumping bass, and gyrating bodies.

It hadn't been hard to find. The P.I. Barney had hired to do some basic leg-work while Smilee, the Expendables principle operative for this mission, was in transit had been able to tell him that his mark had left her hotel in a good part of town, with some of her collogues, who were apparently intent on showing her the local night-life. He'd paid the P.I., sent him on his way, and come straight here. The pulsing Electronica was assaulting his ears long before he stepped over the threshold.

After the deadly, anticipatory quiet of the Serbian country-side, it was a massive shift in gears. He could feel them grating inside his mind and body as he struggled to commit himself to the drastically new shape of his reality. To make himself fit.

He was almost there. He was good at it, this shift. It's why Barney had sent him to Serbia in the first place. An unexpected skill the ageing mercenary had un-covered in his protégée. That and the fact that Smilee hadn't been with the Expendables long enough to be as recognizable as the troop's seasoned, veteran members. He could still claim a healthy anonymity among the myriad ranks of low-lifes and scum in the world. It was an advantage the Expendables hadn't had in a long time. They usually had to contract out their undercover work. And that could be risky.

Barney was hardly adverse to risk, but nonetheless, it had been a long time since he'd had a decent undercover operative that he felt he could trust completely. The problem of Derek Mead in Serbia, Iraq, Somalia, and a dozen other places where a smart, ruthless, determined arms dealers could do a lot of damage, was one Barney had been wanting to solve for a long time. But he'd needed the edge of an inside man, and he hadn't had a face that Derek didn't know, not until now.

_And I was close too_, Smilee thought to himself.

_So close to getting what we needed….._

But that was a regret for another time. Here and now, he needed to hurry.

He needed to start fitting in.

His brooding wasn't going to get him a better look at the automatic weapons a few of the bouncers in the club seemed to be carrying, though his skulking had given him a solid picture of the layout of the room and the various exit points, he was going to need to get moving with the crowd.

He had found Charlotte Brinker.

He'd had a description, of course.

Hair: Light brown.

Eyes: Light brown.

Height: 5'3"

Complexion: Fair

Weight: Approx. 135 Ibs.

Age: 27

Medium hair, medium eyes, small-to-medium build. Not much help in this technicolour wonderland jammed with bodies.

The photograph, sent to his phone, was better. It was a full body shot of a young woman leaning against the trunk of a massive tree, smiling, her expression mischievous, while she looked over her shoulder at the photographer. You couldn't really tell what colour her eyes were, and in the shade her hair could have been anything from dirty-blonde to deep brunette. But the smile, for a second, Smilee felt a surprising and unwelcome twist of jealousy for the unidentified photographer.

He knew why Bonaparte had chosen the photo. The fluid curves of the woman's figure, her relaxed posture, the turn of her shoulders and the way she held her head, the delicate line of her neck, _they_ were distinctive. They were unique. In a dark, crowded room, brown eyes and hair, fair skin, those descriptors meant nothing, but he'd spotted the _shape_ of her, the sinuous curve of her hips and the arch tilt of her chin, over by the bar not ten minutes after walking in. And then there was the touch of stiffness in the shoulders and the slight exaggeration of her gestures that said clearly, she was foreign. In an unfamiliar place where they spoke another language, or with an accent. A slight sense of uncertainty that came from worrying about misunderstanding or being misunderstood. She was an appealing sight, in the dark dress that hugged curves more pronounced than they had looked in the sweatshirt and jeans she'd worn in the photo, the heart-squeezing smile, and that hint of vulnerability. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one to notice the. A man with hair so blonde it looked white when the strobe light flashed, was leaning on his elbow at the bar next to her, one foot on the rail, his body turned side-ways toward her, his left hand on his hip and the other fisted under his chin as he bent his head close, appearing to hang on her every word.

It was too bad that his eager, attentive posture let his light sports jacket fall away from his torso as he inclined his head towards her. It gave John a great view of the nylon strap running under the man's arm. The strap of a shoulder holster, not unlike the one he himself would have been wearing, had he thought he'd be able to make it through the front door with a gun. The fact that this man had was, interesting…..

The presence of the armed, blond man next to Charlotte, and the other men with concealed weapons circulating, seemingly at random, along the edges of the packed dance floor, where all factors in an equation that he didn't like the sum of.

As quick as he'd been at extracting himself his cover, he'd been on the road to Belgrade not more than an hour after receiving his urgent, drop-everything-and-run orders from Barney, it was still an eight hour train ride from there to Budapest. Another two hours to find a room, shower off three month's worth of hard, out-door living with no plumbing to speak of, and find some clothes that _didn't_ make him look like the terrorist he'd been doing his best _to_ look like, eleven hours prior. Well, it looked like the wolves had found little-red-riding hood first.

And not just one wolf, but a whole pack of them. John's count of the armed men dispersed amongst the teeming throng of the nightclub's patrons had risen to five. Five plus one pretty, blond bastard that already had a hand on his prey.

And all John had was the KA-BAR tucked into his boot. They weren't good odds, not by anyone's standards. Not even a man who called himself, Expendable.

The one thing he was counting in his favour, was that the blond man was clearly trying to charm his way into Charlotte's good-graces. Whoever this particular vulture was reporting to, he obviously preferred not to use force at this stage of the game. Better to buy her a few drinks, offer her a pretty package, and hope she waltzed happily out the door with him under her own power. Smart.

Just another tourist charmed into warming the bed of a local Lothario. Nothing to see here folks. Nothing to stand out, nothing to remember. After-all, there was an art to kidnapping a woman from the middle of busy European nightclub.

So far it looked like Charlotte was only half cooperating. Her smile and the way she looked at the blond man from beneath her lashes said she was interested, the barely-touched drink at her elbow and her straight back said she might be looking, but she wasn't buying. Not yet.

So John had better hurry. Detaching himself from the wall, he began to weave his way along the edge of the dance floor. He let his eyes skim over the armed men as if he didn't notice them, as if he, like any other normal man here, had far more important things to devote his attention too. Polished, perfumed, scantily-clad, _female _things.

He didn't have to wait long. It was no more than a handful of minutes after he'd moved into the light, onto the periphery of the crowd and shown himself to be _looking_, that John caught the eye of sultry brunette in a slinky little red number. She had fake boobs she was seriously proud of, tanned legs a mile long, the green eyes of a jungle cat, and long red nails painted to match her dress. As for the dress, it made the most of her assets. Literally. It left her back bare from her nape to where the firm curve of her butt began, and the paltry drape of fabric barely covered it, skimming the line between the backs of her thighs and ass so closely, he wondered if she was using double-sided tape to keep it in place. She'd have needed it in the front too. The crimson silk was split to her navel and left little to the imagination, a deep vee of bronzed skin and the curves of her breasts were bared between panels of fabric pulled snug against her body and tied in a tight knot behind her neck.

The look she gave him was both predatory and inviting. A tricky combination. She pulled it off with ease. He held her eyes and she left the roiling press of sweaty bodies and came towards him, the hypnotic sway of her hips accented by her four inch black heels.

"Want to dance?" She purred in Hungarian, running a red nail from the middle of his right bicep to his wrist, letting her eyes run over his body the same way.

Seductive, appreciative, tempting.

It was gratifying, he wouldn't deny it. He'd never had trouble with women before the war, and he still didn't, that hadn't changed, even if his preferences had. Once he'd have chosen a woman softer, and less obvious than this. Once, when loss and guilt hadn't been his most constant companions, he'd thought of things beyond the moment, beyond the physical gratification of quick sex. Not that there would be any of that tonight for him, or the brunette.

He returned her frankly appraising look, running his eyes over her body and back to her face. Too bad really, but this woman would do as well as another for what he had in mind.

"Igen." _Yes. _He let her catch his hand and pull him into the seething crush of bodies, sneaking a covert glance at the petite woman and her blond shadow at the bar.

_Don't let the wolf get his teeth into you little Red, the cavalry is coming._


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh Illya, I don't know. I really shouldn't run out on my friends…."

Charlotte Brinker blinked as she heard the words coming out of her own mouth and wondered where the denial had come from, she'd been fully intending to accept the handsome Russian's invitation to go for a walk. Honestly, she'd like nothing better than to leave the night-club Zuzanna had dragged her to. It was hot and the music, heavy on the synthesizer and light everything else, was compounding the head-ache the incessantly flashing strobe lights had already gifted her with. She could happily do without either, and she'd never cared overly for the vibe in places like this, which seemed the same no matter where In the world she might find herself. There was a thinly veiled, animalistic quality to the crowd, and almost every time a man had looked at her tonight, Charlie had felt like nothing so much as a piece of meat being considered by a hungry carnivore.

Except for Illya. So far he had kept a respectful distance and seemed content to talk, rather than making a bee-line for the dance floor and an excuse to grope her.

"I wish you would reconsider, Charlie."

His words were gently coaxing and she couldn't help but smile at the exotic flavour his accent gave her name, but she wasn't fooled.

He was charming as hell, and knew it.

"Várnegyed is so beautiful at night, with the castle and the bridge reflected in the river. You would love it, and…"

Illya hesitated deliberately and dipped his head towards her so he could look into her eyes, then reaching for one of her hands, which he clasped in both of his, pressing their joined palms over his heart in a fervent exhibition of longing he no doubt thought would further his cause.

"I would like to see you in the starlight…We could talk there," he murmured, his ice blue eyes deepening as he gazed at her.

"We could say so much more to each other than we can here…"

It was a subtle promise of intimacy, slightly at odds with his keen gaze and passionate displays. Slightly embarrassed and feeling the familiar rush of blood in her cheeks that she knew meant she was blushing, Charlie cursed her fair skin, which would show Illya, and the world, her discomfiture, she quickly tugged her hand free from where he held it captive against the firmly muscled plane of his chest.

Charlie shook her head at him, but tried to soften the denial with a playful smile, telling herself that his intense, emotional gestures and extravagant romanticism might seem a bit extreme, they had only just met after all, but would be perfectly natural in his own culture, and that she was foolish to be made uneasy by it.

He sighed deeply and let his fingers gently caress a lock of honey-bronze hair that floated by her ear, having escaped from the mass of her tawny curls which she had pinned atop her head for the evening, before gracefully withdrawing

What was wrong with her?

She would much prefer the cobbled streets of the medieval city's famed castle district and the cool, freshening caress of the night air to the stifled confines of the dance floor, or her current, uncomfortably high perch on the stool at the bar.

Illya was good company, charming and intelligent, and more than passably good-looking. His voice, deep and warm with its slightly rough accent, gave her a pleasant shiver whenever he leaned close, perhaps a little closer than strictly necessary, to be heard over the music. Slim, dark jeans and a tan sport coat flattered his tall, leanly muscular frame, and the deep blue of his button down shirt was a striking contrast with his head of thick, almost white-blonde, hair and made his light blue eyes darken to a breath-taking lapis. And those extraordinary eyes seemed to see only her….And that was just it!

Charlie wasn't falsely modest. She was pretty enough and men had always been attracted to her pronounced curves, which she often cursed as a mixed blessing, but she was hardly the best looking, or even one of the best looking, women in this night-club. She was also demonstrably more reserved than most of the other women here, so why was Illya, who _was_ one of the best looking men in the place, wasting all this time with her? She hadn't missed the envious, and occasionally down-right poisonous, glances of the women around them.

Was it that she was foreign, and therefore somehow novel?

There was something in his singular attention that felt, not-quite-right. He seemed somehow too eager to please her. Any time he strayed into territory that seemed to make her uncomfortable, or when she inevitably withdrew from his touch, he not only accepted the rebuff, but hastily made amends, a drink, an apology, an amusing anecdote to smooth over the resulting awkwardness…..

It was sweet and gentlemanly, but….She thought she saw something that felt flat and a little predatory hidden behind his gallantry, when she continually discouraged his advances, and yet he did not leave and look for easier prey. Why? He seemed _so_ focused on her….

_You've a suspicious mind, Charlie. How like your father you are that way…._

Charlie could hear her mother's voice clearly in her head and gritted her teeth. How many times had she been told that growing up? She hated be compared to _him, _who hadn't wanted her, who had left her.

_Suspicious mind, more like trust issues resulting from my abandonment complex, thanks ever so long-departed Daddy dearest._

_Relax Charlie. _Now the voice of her inner monologue sounded like her best friend Amy.

_It could just be that this guy finds you particularly attractive. Is that so hard to believe? Standards of beauty are socially constructed, but attraction is singular and subjective to every individual….This is more likely a self-esteem issue…_

Amy was a social anthropologist, it was a fragment of a lecture Charlie had heard from her many times.

Charlie tried to push her doubtful thoughts aside.

_Be reasonable_, she told herself. He's a nice, interesting, handsome man who wants to talk, to _you_! Why must you always look for complications where there aren't any!?

Suitably chastened for her misgivings by her inner voice, Charlie looked back up at Illya, trying to muster a smile, only to find that, for the first time that evening, she did not have his undivided attention.

Squashing a fission of annoyance, hadn't she just been contemplating his singular attention to herself and condemning it as unnatural? Now she wasn't happy because he was suddenly interested in someone else?

_You're damning him if he does and damning him if he doesn't, Charlie. You're ridiculous. _She told herself firmly, and craned her neck to see what had finally drawn her stoic suitor's eye.

_Well, you can hardly blame him for looking at that._ She told herself, feeling her eyebrows raise of their own volition.

_Everyone in the bloody room is looking at __**that**__. He's only human_.

The woman in question was wearing a dress of deep, crimson fabric, with a slick, expensive sheen to it. Silk probably, Charlie thought, and not much of it. The woman's mass of dark, perfectly curled hair was covering more of her than the damn dress, and yet, it wasn't really her outfit that was commanding attention. There were plenty of women here wearing as little, maybe even a few who were wearing less, as impossible as that seemed. But it was the look in her slanted, cat-like eyes and the blatantly carnal way she moved against the man she was dancing with, that caught, and held, the eye.

_Even an unwilling eye_, thought Charlie to herself, finding she couldn't quite bring herself to look away, though she felt another cursed blush, this one more fiery than the first, climbing from her chest up her neck.

The woman in red had all the power of a female who fully embraced her own sexuality. She was slyly knowing, gloriously uninhibited, and…._Jesus! Aggressive_! Charlie thought, shocked in spite of herself when the woman, grinding her ass against her partner, who stood behind her, slowly deliberately and drew his hands up from her hips and across her sleek torso to cup her large, _Fake_! Charlie thought with what she fully recognized as petty satisfaction, breasts.

The hands Charlie noticed, were large, wide-palmed and long fingered, but though the man they were attached to swayed, relaxed and rhythmic to the music, moving easily against his partner and holding her close, those hands only closed, brief and hesitant, over the woman's chest as she arched her back suggestively, before slipping back down to settle at her waist. The woman laughed and hooked an arm behind her head, around the man's neck to draw his face down to hers, but to Charlie's surprise, he resisted, not allowing her to pull his mouth to hers.

He seemed beguiled by the woman's actions, but also slightly embarrassed and uncertain with her hedonistic display. Glancing at the man's face, Charlie accidentally caught his eye. He ducked his head quickly and then glanced back, shooting her an involuntary-seeming, sheepish half-smile that was half-apologetic, half-bemused, as though he was trying to explain that he wasn't quite sure how he'd wound up here…..even though here wasn't _exactly_ bad...

She found it fucking _adorable._ And the rest of him wasn't bad either, Charlie mused, as her attention shifted more fully from the woman to her partner.

He was tall. Very tall, judging by how many inches he had on the woman, who was not short to begin with, and who was also wearing the kind of back-breakingly high heels Charlie could never quite bring herself to torture her feet with. He was powerfully built, with a wide chest and shoulders that were broad and heavily muscled, as were the arms shown off by his simple black tee-shirt. However, the deep chest narrowed to a lean, taught torso, slim hips and long legs, giving him an appearance of impressive, and to Charlie, _very_ appealing, masculinity, without being disproportionately beefy. She picked out the features of his face one at a time as the strobe light flashed. In a romance novel, it would be called _chiselled_, with a high brow, sharp, broad cheekbones, and a firm, square jaw. His mouth was full, mobile and sensual, and his hair appeared dark and…..Charlie snorted out-loud with laughter as watching him closely as she was, rather than the woman like everyone else, she saw him tighten his hold on his partner's hands, quick and convulsive, as she started to move them again, clearly worried about where she might try to put them _this_ time…..

As if he had heard her, the man suddenly looked up again, right at her, and Charlie swore she could see an answering twinkle in his eye, as if they were old friends sharing a private joke….

_How typical. You're attracted to the stranger who's dancing with another woman, and not just any woman, a bloody siren that drips straight-up, expensive sex, instead of the perfectly nice and fascinating man who's spent all night lavishing you with attention. _

_Idiot. _Charlie reprimanded herself, but couldn't quite manage to pull her eyes back to Illya, who had suddenly seemed to realize he had been ignoring her and was now stroking her arm gently from shoulder to wrist, in a bid to re-gain her attention, until the man and his partner had been swallowed by the swell of the crowd on the dance floor.

Resisting an uncharitable urge to flick Illya's fingers from her arm, she settled for hopping down from her stool, subtly removing herself from the contact.

Standing back and considering him, Charlie admitted defeat, finding she'd lost even the meagre appetite she'd been able to cultivate for his company. Excusing herself to the ladies room, she firmly refraining from responding affirmatively to his subtle but persistent attempts to extract a promise from her to return.

She swore she could feel his eyes, pinned to her back, as she walked away, skirting the edge of the dance floor, and feeling nothing so much as relief when she looked behind her and could no longer see him.


End file.
